12/04/2008 @ 6:00PM

My Genes And Me

High school genetics taught me a thing or two: I would never have red-headed children, and that growth spurt I hoped would eventually happen was, at best, a remote possibility.

But it turns out our DNA can tell us more than just our hair color or height. A year and a half ago, my family took part in the Genographic Project, a nonprofit collaboration between National Geographic and
IBM
, aiming to discover the migratory patterns of human groups out of Africa. My cousin volunteered her genetic data, swiped her cheek with a cotton swab and sent it off to a lab for DNA analysis. I already knew my immediate ancestors were Roman Catholics from Spain. But it turned out they took a circuitous route to the Iberian Peninsula: from Eastern Europe to Scandinavia to probably France before settling near Barcelona.

Science has evolved rapidly since the Genographic Project launched in 2005. Now, you can simply spit into a vial and send it off to several genetic-testing start-ups, such as 23andme and the nonprofit Personal Genome Project. These companies will tell you some interesting stuff–not just the migratory patterns of your ancestors but your predispositions for certain diseases or why you don’t like Brussels sprouts (a sliver of DNA that allows you to taste a bitter compound in vegetables).

“For science and individual health and identity, I think we’re in a key time,” says Mary Sue Kelly, a 63-year-old retired psychiatrist who has had her DNA analyzed by the Genographic Project and Navigenics, a disease-focused genetic-testing start-up. “I’ve made the analogy of when the first mirror was seen–that must have flipped out a whole bunch of people for a long time, or when the first camera came. I think this is as illuminating as that–the first time you saw yourself and just ‘Oh my word, that’s what I look like?’ “

My results from the Genographic Project didn’t quite rock my world, but they were surprising. “Guess what we are,” my aunt exclaimed when the results came in. I had always thought, due to my grandmother’s darker complexion, that I was descended from Arabs who had come to Spain during the expansion of the Ottoman Empire. But I was wrong. “We’re Jewish,” my aunt said, as my grandmother shook her head incredulously in the seat across from us. “Eastern European Ashkenazi Jews.” I briefly wondered if this explained my attraction for Jewish men, shrugged and went back to my book.

I recently, however, decided to dig a little deeper. A search on Ashkenazi Jews brings up some fascinating details–we’re really smart, and we were heavily involved in the ostrich-feather trade. But Ashkenazi Jews are also susceptible to a host of scary-sounding genetic diseases, such as Fanconi anemia–associated with short stature (check); bone marrow failure (yikes, I hope not); a predisposition to leukemia and other cancers (my mother had cancer); and Cystic Fibrosis.

Since the Genographic Project is an anthropological study, it doesn’t tell me what chance I have of developing any of these diseases. But other genetic-testing companies can, at least to some extent.

Kelly discovered through Navigenics that she has a higher propensity to obesity, so she began exercising more. Mari Baker, CEO of Navigenics, had suffered from bleeding and abdominal pain for years; a genetic test revealed a predisposition for celiac disease, which often leads to gluten intolerance. Sure enough, she tested positive and cut gluten from her diet. Linda Avey, co-founder of 23andme, discovered she had a higher risk of psoriasis, which causes skin problems.

“These diseases, many times, aren’t fatal. But they do affect quality of life,” says Avey. And sometimes they are serious. For example,
Google
founder Sergey Brin, who is married to 23andme’s other founder Anne Wojcicki, discovered he carries a genetic mutation commonly associated with Parkinson’s disease–carriers of the mutation are 10 times more likely to get the disease than the average person. (His mother and her aunt had previously been diagnosed with Parkinson’s.)

But Avey sees Brin’s discovery as a positive: “Sergey is going out and helping so many people,” she says. “Michael J. Fox has done a lot with his foundation, but he did that after he was diagnosed. If you can find out early, you can do so much more.”

But does knowing my genetic predisposition to various ailments–from restless leg syndrome to breast cancer–help? Or will it turn me into a neurotic mess? (Some medical experts believe that knowing this information can do more harm than good, particularly since many results are inconclusive, and I am a slight hypochondriac already.) And can it somehow provide enlightenment about my own identity–ancestral, genetic or otherwise?

“Look, genetic data is not scary or secret,” says Esther Dyson, a technology journalist and investor who sits on the board of 23andme. “The point is to have people not think about genetics with fear and anxiety.”

But Dyson, who had part of her genome sequenced and made available to the public, recants a bit. “If I found out I had a high chance of contracting a fatal illness, I would train to be a cosmonaut–though I am doing that anyway,” she says. “But possibility spurs people to do things.”

Kelly feels rather differently: “It’s a more intimate relationship with myself. I know I have two feet, two hands; I know what color my hair is. But now I know something beyond who my grandmother and my great-grandmother were.”

“I was diagnosed with breast cancer 12 years ago,” she adds. “A lot of times, cancer patients get kind of a funny, funky relationship with your body. … The one thing that [genetic testing] did for me was that it reestablished or restored or maybe repaired that ruptured or damaged relationship with my body. … And so that was a tangible thing–I do look at life differently.”